Notebook One: Cerebus #24 Part Three

MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening: 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

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Over the last two weeks we’ve seen some material in Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus, a notebook that he calls Albatross One, that did not make it into Cerebus #24. Will page 93 continue along those same lines or will it contain material that makes the finished pages? Lets find out.

Notebook 1, page 93

And the above page continues with the unused plot of Cerebus thinking that Theresa and Katrina were Jaka and he was talking about leaving with them. So at the top of the page we have the direction of “panning outside girls door and down the stairs to where we find Madame napping in her chair. Exaggeration on the order of: he called to me as I passed his room ‘come here my most beautiful Theresa.’”

This unused plot continues down the page with Theresa and Cerebus drinking something together, and Cerebus not remembering any of the conversation he had with them from the previous notebook pages. 

On the next page up at the top it says page 9, but none of this is on page nine of Cerebus #24. Instead we have the girls telling stories of Lord Julius and Elrod that are distortions of the real stories. 

Notebook 1, page 94

Instead we get more unused plot of Madame DuFort talking with the girls, and then talking with Cerebus who has a hangover. Madame DuFort is giving Cerebus a lecture about not messing with her girls. This continues on the next page of the notebook, and we even get to see Cerebus’ bloodshot eyes reacting to Madame’s lecture:

Notebook 1, page 95

Somehow I don’t see Cerebus ever telling Madame DuFort “Cerebus promises to do whatever you want him to do for the rest of his life as long as you don’t do that again.” And as you can see the other side of this page, which is page 96, has some more drawing on it. Will we continue on this unused plot line for Cerebus #24 or will we get the plot that actually happened in Cerebus #24: the reveal of Woman Thing and Charles X. Claremont? We’ll find out next week.